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"Dominion is not ready for ranked in terms of balance"

From a user perspective, say there are players who want to play both modes, and have a favorite champion. It becomes very frustrating for the player to have that champion feel and play differently in one mode to the next.

The items, and Dominion buff aura are the areas that should be tweaked, if any. They need to be global changes to Dominion mechanics, not champion mechanics. A global movespeed cap is an example of that.

Also, to clarify what I mean by item tweaking, I don't mean specific item changes just for Dominion. If a particular item is causing an issue (like Bloodthirster or Warmog's) lock it out and create an appropriate replacement. Again, this keeps the user experience consistent between the game modes.

Honestly, I think that dominion-specific champion tweaks may be the ONLY good solution. You mention people possibly getting frustrated that their favorite champion is not the same from mode to mode, and I can understand that perspective. However, that's already effectively the case. Just look at champions like Poppy and Cho'Gath. Both are powerhouses in one mode, and almost untouched in the other.

Poppy is really the perfect example, so I'll expand there a little: in SR, her almost complete inability to lane well makes her a risky pick at best, and a liability at worst. In dominion, the lack of a laning phase makes her a monster. If you buffed/changed her to maker her more viable in SR (gave her some form of sustain, for example), she would be unbelievably broken in Dominion. But any changes to her hyper-carry status in Dominion (passive nerf, ultimate cd increase, etc) would make her utterly trash in SR. Maybe you could tinker with the dominion aura until all 90 or so champions are balanced between the two maps, but I can't see it happening.

The other promising venue is dominion-specific items, but I don't see this bridging the fundamental gap between the two maps (one heavily favors lanining ability, the other teamfighting and mobility).

its because with that mentality we would end up playing and actual smaller pool of champions, Say you instaban WW, Rammus,Urgot and Kassadin, then pantheon, Wukong and Riven get to the instaban status because they are the strongest bruisers after that, then; you instaban three more that reachinstaban status after that. Soon after ; we would have Heck who knows Vladimir, Kennen or even nunu on that instaban list and recurring to a really narrow Dominion pool of champions, maybe Narrower than Summonner's rift.

You're never going to get all of the champions perfectly balanced. You'll always have a rough tier list of strong, medium, and weak picks in a vacuum. You really just want to make the transition between tiers as muddy as possible, and have champions that while they might be weak in one comp, are much stronger in another comp and so on, so forth.

I think the Dominion aura is the solution, personally. I just wish Riot had been testing ideas this whole time, tweaking the numbers and seeing what works best when it goes live. Figuring out what set of numbers allows the largest number of champions to be viable and the smallest number of champions broken or useless would have been a wise use of the past few months.

its because with that mentality we would end up playing and actual smaller pool of champions, Say you instaban WW, Rammus,Urgot and Kassadin, then pantheon, Wukong and Riven get to the instaban status because they are the strongest bruisers after that, then; you instaban three more that reachinstaban status after that Soon after that we would have Heck who knows Vladimir, Kennen or even nunu on that instaban list and recrring to a really narrow Dominion pool of champions, maybe Narrower than Summonner's rift.

Or it could open up the pool of usable champions by no longer forcing players to pick the champions who are far and away superior.

For example, Riven is a strong champ but she isn't the same degree stronger over mid-level champions as Rammus. Therefore, you're forcing players to either pick or ban Rammus. IMO, Riven would be more of a strategic pick/ban as opposed to a required one.

We see this same behavior in SR, tournaments, etc. It's just that champions aren't balanced around Dominion, so some extra steps need to be taken IMO.

Also, we need a way to remove the 1-bot, 4-top meta. I can't help but think 1-bot was unintentional, because it's basically laning... which Dominion was trying to remove from the game. How do we eliminate the effectiveness of that strategy to encourage fluidity. Rearrange the map? Add a 6th point? Move spawning points so they are 180 degrees from each other on the circle, and slap a point in front of the spawn? I'm just throwing ideas out there.

I've thought of this as well - opening more tactical options. Right now, as long as there are 5 outposts, I think there will always be a 4-1 meta. The thing is, there are at most only two lines of attack in dominion. You can work the bottom turret or the top turret (or, if you have the top turret already, hit the enemy middle turret). As long as only two lines of attack are available, there will be a 4-1 meta. Backdooring the middle turret is risky and is more of a stealth attack, rather than a team focused effort, in general.

What do you think about putting a turret in the middle of the map, where the runes are? The runes can either spawn still on the middle turret, or maybe up top, or bottom, or cycle between the three. This will open up 3 lines of attack and give a lot more options on how to play. Plus, the middle turret would be an absolute kill zone because it is surrounded by jungle. That would be a blast, I think.

We could leave it so creeps don't attack the middle turret - it would be a purely champion captured turret, which makes it harder to capture, but the reward is higher (runes and more defensible turret). You are left with the choice of taking an easy to take top turret or bank on tackling a more difficult, but more rewarding middle turret. Also, if the runes were set more towards the bottom, it would give more incentive to focus on bottom lane control.

I personally don't see the why having a champion play different in one mode from the next is a bad thing like some people have stated. The different items have forced people to reevaluate their builds and while it throws you off for a few games you quickly adjust. I feel this would be exactly the same with dominion specific champion changes. The two modes play completely differently already, so if you're looking for the same experience as SR then you're in the wrong place, IMHO.

Basically what I'm saying is there are some champs that clearly need nerfs or buffs to properly fit dominion and the only way I can see to fix it is doing just that; nerfing/buffing them. And the only negative side (having to adjust) just isn't a big deal and will only last a half a dozen games before you're used to it, if even that.

I've thought of this as well - opening more tactical options. Right now, as long as there are 5 outposts, I think there will always be a 4-1 meta. The thing is, there are at most only two lines of attack in dominion. You can work the bottom turret or the top turret (or, if you have the top turret already, hit the enemy middle turret). As long as only two lines of attack are available, there will be a 4-1 meta. Backdooring the middle turret is risky and is more of a stealth attack, rather than a team focused effort, in general.

What do you think about putting a turret in the middle of the map, where the runes are? The runes can either spawn still on the middle turret, or maybe up top, or bottom, or cycle between the three. This will open up 3 lines of attack and give a lot more options on how to play. Plus, the middle turret would be an absolute kill zone because it is surrounded by jungle. That would be a blast, I think.

We could leave it so creeps don't attack the middle turret - it would be a purely champion captured turret, which makes it harder to capture, but the reward is higher (runes and more defensible turret). You are left with the choice of taking an easy to take top turret or bank on tackling a more difficult, but more rewarding middle turret. Also, if the runes were set more towards the bottom, it would give more incentive to focus on bottom lane control.

I don't know about the turret in the middle idea. If you're saying to move the fifth tower down to the middle then what will end up happening is the whole game will be a king of the hill for that tower. If you're saying to just add it as a sixth tower then stalemates would be occurring much more often, which in turn, I feel, would greatly slow down the face pace feel that people love about dominion.

I don't know about the turret in the middle idea. If you're saying to move the fifth tower down to the middle then what will end up happening is the whole game will be a king of the hill for that tower. If you're saying to just add it as a sixth tower then stalemates would be occurring much more often, which in turn, I feel, would greatly slow down the face pace feel that people love about dominion.

I meant adding a sixth turret. That would be an issue, where there could potentially be a 3v3 situation with the turrets. Perhaps make one of the turrets (say, top) worth more than the others would fix it? The middle turret would offer runes, the top turret more points, and the bottom turret could become the standard "quest" turret, where you can win the teamwide buff. That gives incentive to win any three of those turrets and keeps the game going, while adding more tactical options.

Alternatively, the middle turret could be worth more points, and the top turret provide the relics.

I meant adding a sixth turret. That would be an issue, where there could potentially be a 3v3 situation with the turrets. Perhaps make one of the turrets (say, top) worth more than the others would fix it? The middle turret would offer runes, the top turret more points, and the bottom turret could become the standard "quest" turret, where you can win your buffs. That gives incentive to win any three of those turrets and keeps the game going, while adding more tactical options.

Actually I like that a lot. Make the top turret worth having two turrets. I shall think it over some more in my head to try and see any problems that it might create, but for the time being I'm pretty well sold on this idea.